In a rare public comment, Apple's public relations department responded Wednesday to criticisms from the project manager for Adobe Flash, suggesting his recent criticism of Apple was "backwards."

In a statement to CNet's DeepTech, Apple spokeswoman Trudy Miller fired back at Adobe's Mike Chambers, who revealed this week that his company was abandoning its investment in a feature that would allow Flash applications to be ported natively to the iPhone OS. Chambers also made comments suggesting that Apple's closed system was restrictive to developers -- an allegation that caught the ire of Apple.

"Someone has it backwards -- it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe's Flash is closed and proprietary," Apple's Miller said in the statement.

While Apple's stance should come as no surprise, the fact that it offered comment on the matter is unique for the notoriously secretive company. When Apple introduced iPhone OS 4 earlier this month, company co-founder Steve Jobs was asked if there were any plans to add support for Adobe Flash. Jobs simply responded, "No."

But privately, Jobs has allegedly been very outspoken about Flash in recent months. At a company meeting in January, the CEO was rumored to have called Adobe "lazy," and said most Mac crashes are due to Flash. "The world is moving to HTML5," Jobs was quoted as saying.

Jobs also allegedly called Flash a "CPU hog" in a meeting with officials from The Wall Street Journal. The Apple co-founder was said to have called the Web format "full of security holes" and "old technology."

Adobe employees and supporters have fired back publicly since Apple revealed the iPad, which does not support Flash. Then, earlier this month, Apple took it one step further and specifically prohibited the development of applications using "an intermediary translation or compatibility layer tool." The change to the iPhone OS developer agreement means that software originally written for formats like Adobe's Flash cannot be ported to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Adobe's forthcoming Creative Suite 5 includes software that allows Flash developers to port their software to the iPhone, though Adobe will no longer advance that technology due to Apple's changes.

One Adobe supporter suggested Apple timed the announcement to hurt sales of CS5. Jobs, in an e-mail, defended the move and said that intermediary software only results in substandard applications.

In a rare public comment, Apple's public relations department responded Wednesday to criticisms from the project manager for Adobe Flash, suggesting his recent criticism of Apple was "backwards."

"Someone has it backwards -- it is HTML5, CSS, JavaScript, and H.264 (all supported by the iPhone and iPad) that are open and standard, while Adobe's Flash is closed and proprietary," Apple's Miller said in the statement.

But privately, Jobs has allegedly been very outspoken about Flash in recent months. At a company meeting in January, the CEO was rumored to have called Adobe "lazy," and said most Mac crashes are due to Flash. "The world is moving to HTML5," Jobs was quoted as saying.

Jobs also allegedly called Flash a "CPU hog" in a meeting with officials from The Wall Street Journal. The Apple co-founder was said to have called the Web format "full of security holes" and "old technology."

One Adobe supporter suggested Apple timed the announcement to hurt sales of CS5. Jobs, in an e-mail, defended the move and said that intermediary software only results in substandard applications.

Flash is not necessary.

I can't believe we're once again going over the same crap again (Note the first time were the browser specific tags that Microsoft fostered in order to defeat Netscape)

How many times do you have to tell people that the Internet needs to be open and accessible to as many people as possible without having to pay some company?

It's interesting to see Google begin to cave on open internet as well (embracing Flash on Android) . Their integrity and "do no evil" mantra seems to erode a bit more day by day.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

Adobe had better pray that there is never an iPhone on Verizon because the Droid is the only reason why Android has any market share.

This will be taken care of next year is presume.

Tim Cook (I believe) all but said that there are only 3 areas where the iPhone has single carrier exclusity (Spain, US and another country). He mentioned that they had already made of their mind about the US market.

Reading between the lines I see iPhone on Verizon Q1 of 2011.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

It's interesting to see Google begin to cave on open internet as well (embracing Flash on Android) . Their integrity and "do no evil" mantra seems to erode a bit more day by day.

"do no evil" is just a feel good marketing slogan and has been for some time.

What amuses me are the sppeople who criticize iAd and then turn around and praise Android. I always wonder just why they think google and android exist. It's not for search or to better the smartphone market - at least that's not their primary goal.

Edit: indeed, all one has to do is look at the bottom of this page to see what google is about!

"do no evil" is just a feel good marketing slogan and has been for some time.

What amuses me are the sppeople who criticize iAd and then turn around and praise Android. I always wonder just why they think google and android exist. It's not for search or to better the smartphone market - at least that's not their primary goal.

Edit: indeed, all one has to do is look at the bottom of this page to see what google is about!

Clearly

Much like Politicians some people take a fondness for a person or company which apparently abstract from logical reasoning.

I had my google account compromised and by the time I got my password reset 3.6 GB of archived email was GONE.

I'm seriously debating jettisoning my google account. I don't really need Google Reader as I'm becoming more comfortable with Twitter for getting info. I have Mobileme now so I have acceptable email and calendar that syncs easy with my Mac and the cloud.

The only downside is that this will cost me about 7 dollars a month but in the end that's chump change.

My internet life has become so much better since installing Click2Flash. That speaks volumes about how negative the ratio of useful/annoying Flash really is for me.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

I'm a little surprised Apple would bother getting into a public tit for tat on this, just because the whole question of "open" versus "proprietary" is not something that most consumers generally care about. I think this is really more of a developer issue. Consumers don't care if Flash or html5 are "open" or "proprietary" -- from their point of view, both are "free" to use. Apple should focus on making the argument that their solution results in a better experience for consumers than Flash.

I wonder if anyone else recalls that the until the current version, Keynote had the ability to export to Flash. Hardly anyone mentioned it at the time but that feature disappeared with Keynote 5, about a year ago now. The decision to drop it could have been made long before that. This puzzled me until the war of words broke out between Apple and Adobe. Something more than just a dispute over technology is going on here, most likely.

I love Apple, but nearly EVERYTHING they do is closed and proprietary. I guess it's OK if your closed system provides excellent quality (e.g. OS X & App Store) but if it produces processor hogs than too bad.

I find that a very funny statement coming from Apple. Didnt they just squelch a company for selling hardware with Apple OS on them. They also have no open market for software developers within the IPhone only what they approve of. Pot calling the Kettle black I would say...

"We don't know how to make a $500 computer that's not a piece of junk" - Steve Jobs

Price of an iPad - $499

The only people calling it a computer are those criticizing it. It's a media consumption device with a few "computer-like" features built in. If you want an Apple computer that is a computer be prepared to pay $1K.

Ok, so both the iPhone and Flash are closed systems. What else is new.

I don't think the argument here is the "Closed System" but rather the lack of standards. The Apple SDK, HTML, CSS etc all work 1 way and 1 way only. In Flash five (arbitrary number) people can develop the same app 5 different ways and that's the problemthere's no standard. This is what leads to CPUs running crazy and all sorts of other issues like bloated files.

Shoot just having a Netflix [flash] popup ad on my tower was consuming 35-47% of one of the processors! For and ad!

i have had a love-hate relationship with adobe throughout the years. but realistically though, they won't be going away soon.

if adobe would just put their d*cks back in their pants admit they've been resting on their laurels and say to apple, 'hey guys, we want to be at the forefront in software innovation and we'd like your help in getting us there because you guys are writing the book on forward thinking...' they could be a kick-ass company. probably won't happen.

so...what are some good alternatives to photoshop, illustrator and indesign? and, please don't say quark.

I find that a very funny statement coming from Apple. Didnt they just squelch a company for selling hardware with Apple OS on them. They also have no open market for software developers within the IPhone only what they approve of. Pot calling the Kettle black I would say...

Well, Apple's point of view is that they have every right to keep their own systems closed and proprietary but that Adobe is actually foisting a closed and proprietary standard on the internet, and thus onto everyone's systems.

... It's interesting to see Google begin to cave on open internet as well (embracing Flash on Android) ...

Yeah, only a few people have picked up on it so far, but how stupid is it that Google, the "champion of open source" is now the number one thing standing in the way of a completely open web. If they dropped Flash support on Android, Adobe would be forced to cave on making HTML 5 tools and Flash would be old news in a couple of years at most. Instead they chose to prop up proprietary software because it's in their financial interests to do so. Wow.

I find that a very funny statement coming from Apple. Didnt they just squelch a company for selling hardware with Apple OS on them. They also have no open market for software developers within the IPhone only what they approve of. Pot calling the Kettle black I would say...

Sir

May I have your social security number? Seeing as how you obviously are a bastion of openness.

I'm having a hard time seeing the correlation between a company buying your off the shelf OS and installing it on hacked hardware for profit.

Open Markets have their place. The Internet is a communication medium so I think it's appropriate to skew towards keeping as much open.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX

The only people calling it a computer are those criticizing it. It's a media consumption device with a few "computer-like" features built in. If you want an Apple computer that is a computer be prepared to pay $1K.

Quote:

Originally Posted by thompr

Jobs & Co refer to the iPad as a mobile device. It's not a computer. It's a tablet built primarily for consumption of media.

I think you guys are both just making arbitrary distinctions that don't mean very much. Also, the implication that Steve Jobs or Apple agrees with these distinctions is wrong.

The iPad is most definitely a computer in the technical sense and colloquially, it's a computer to most people who use/buy it.

Meh, Adobe dosn't need Apple. They have over 90% of the computers in the world using Flash. They must be doing something right. Besides, there are many things you can do with flash that you won't be able to do with HTML 5. You can do many of the things Flash does with current standards, but you don't see anyone doing it. Why? because Flash is better. You are still going to have to have a browser and hardware to support the new standard. Who is to say the browser is going to be able to pull of HTML 5 and do it better than flash on devices like the iPhone. If something is flaky, it's most likely what a programmer wrote, and not anything wrong with Flash. Apple dosn't seem to have tried to help them up to this point, and then they want to complain and say it dosn't work well and they won't use it... They have an agenda. They tried to stall others like HTC with lawsuits to try to buy time to get their next product to market before the competition. They will not allow flash on their products because it ruins their monoply of control. Flash would allow users to run flash games that do not need to be installed, thus you can circumvent the app store. The are also preparing to launch a video service, so again, Flash is competition to that. Look at what others are doing. Microsoft and Linux are not abandoning flash, but they are going to adopt the new stardard. The people can choose to stop using flash on their own if something better comes along. We don't need Steve making more decisions for everyone as if he knows what is best for ever single unique person out there.

Meh, Adobe dosn't need Apple. They have over 90% of the computers in the world using Flash. They must be doing something right. Besides, there are many things you can do with flash that you won't be able to do with HTML 5. You can do many of the things Flash does with current standards, but you don't see anyone doing it. Why? because Flash is better. You are still going to have to have a browser and hardware to support the new standard. Who is to say the browser is going to be able to pull of HTML 5 and do it better than flash on devices like the iPhone. If something is flaky, it's most likely what a programmer wrote, and not anything wrong with Flash. Apple dosn't seem to have tried to help them up to this point, and then they want to complain and say it dosn't work well and they won't use it... They have an agenda. They tried to stall others like HTC with lawsuits to try to buy time to get their next product to market before the competition. They will not allow flash on their products because it ruins their monoply of control. Flash would allow users to run flash games that do not need to be installed, thus you can circumvent the app store. The are also preparing to launch a video service, so again, Flash is competition to that. Look at what others are doing. Microsoft and Linux are not abandoning flash, but they are going to adopt the new stardard. The people can choose to stop using flash on their own if something better comes along. We don't need Steve making more decisions for everyone as if he knows what is best for ever single unique person out there.

Paragraphs are your friend.

He's a mod so he has a few extra vBulletin privileges. That doesn't mean he should stop posting or should start acting like Digital Jesus.- SolipsismX